The Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017

Farm capital grants

26.—(1) Where an application for a farm capital grant is made as respects expenditure incurred or to be incurred for the purpose of activities on land within a European site, the appropriate authority—

(a) must, so far as may be consistent with the purposes of the grant provisions, exercise its functions so as to further the conservation of the protected features; and

(b) where the appropriate nature conservation body has objected to the making of the grant on the ground that the activities in question have destroyed or damaged, or will destroy or damage, those protected features, must not make the grant except after considering the objection.

(2) Where in consequence of an objection by the appropriate nature conservation body, an application for a grant as respects expenditure to be incurred is refused on the ground that the activities in question will destroy or damage protected features, the appropriate nature conservation body must, within three months of its receiving notice of the appropriate authority’s decision, offer to enter into a management agreement in the terms of a draft submitted to the applicant—

(a) imposing restrictions as respects those activities; and

(b) providing for the making by it of payments to the applicant.

(3) In this regulation—

“farm capital grant” means—

(a)

a grant under a scheme made under section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970 (farm capital grants)(1); or

(b)

a grant under regulations made under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972(2) to a person carrying on an agricultural business within the meaning of those regulations in respect of expenditure incurred or to be incurred for the purposes of or in connection with that business, being expenditure of a capital nature or incurred in connection with expenditure of a capital nature;

“grant provisions” means—

(a)

in the case of a grant described in paragraph (a) of the definition of “farm capital grant”, the scheme under which the grant is made and section 29 of the Agriculture Act 1970;

(b)

in the case of a grant of a kind described in paragraph (b) of the definition of “farm capital grant”, the regulations under which the grant is made and the EU instrument in pursuance of which the regulations were made;

“protected features”, in relation to a European site, means the flora, fauna, or geological or physiological features by reason of which the land is a European site.

(1)

1970 c. 40. Section 29 was amended by the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 (c. 55), section 15; the Criminal Justice Act 1982 (c. 48), sections 37, 38 and 46; and the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1986 (c. 12).

(2)

1972 c. 68. Section 2(2) was amended by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (c. 51), section 27(1); and the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 (c. 7), Schedule 1(1), paragraph 1.